Day Twenty-seven

Today's words:

Jump

Porridge

Playground

Fad

Horse

Zoo

"Jump

"Up!" said Nanny, "And eat your porridge

"So we can go to the playground

"Or your recent fad,

"Visiting the horse

"At the petting zoo."

Every child feels like a creature in a zoo.

Being ordered to jump

On command, like a trained horse,

And fed disgusting porridge

While striving to keep up with the latest fad

Of the playground

Bullies. For make no mistake, the playground

Is a more structured society than a zoo,

Made up of different classes of animals. The rulers impose their fad,

Whether it be to jump

Off the swings, have porridge

Fights, or play horse

With the little kids. A brutal game of horse

On the playground

Will kill your appetite for porridge.

It's like at the zoo

When bigger lions jump

On smaller ones. But pack leaders are a fad - 

King of the jungle one day, a forgotten fad

The next, as some new horse

Comes to jump

Over more kids on the playground

Than the last. Back at the zoo

The lion savors its porridge.

My nanny used to put raisins in my porridge.

It was quite a fad

Until she discovered, one day at the zoo,

That I'd spit them out and saved them, to feed to the horse

That we passed on the way to the playground.

I'd thought it would make it jump.

Feeding porridge to the horse

Was just another fad on the playground

Until we tried it at the zoo, to make the lions jump.